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Monday, February 2, 2009

Walker Evans' Postcards

Walker Evans was an American photographer best known for his photographs of rural farm families during the Great Depression, working both for the Resettlement Administration and for the Farm Security Administration. During the 1930s, he went with writer James Agee to Hale County, Alabama on assignment from Fortune Magazine to do a story about some of the poor rural families in that area, and the effects of the depression on them. The magazine ended up not running the story, but it was published in book form as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
In the 1930s, he published a book titled Many Are Called which consisted of his snapshots of subway riders in New York City. The book was republished in recent years.
Evans also worked at Time and at Fortune Magazine, and eventually became a professor at Yale. He died in 1975.

Walker Evans used to collect post cards from the five and dime stores. His postcard collection went on display on February 2, 2009 at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Below are photos of two postcards from his collection, one from 1929, one from 1935, both showing Front Street in Morgan City, Lousiana.

1929
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1935:

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